Abstract: Purpose
Consumer Attitudes and Activities
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- 5.1.1 Awareness of Mobile Marketing
- 5.1.2 Interest in Mobile Marketing
- 5.1.3 Experience with Mobile Marketing
- 5.1.4 Adoption/Rejection of Mobile Marketing
5.1 Consumer Attitudes and ActivitiesEver since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and that of Android in early 2008, the adoption of smartphones has increased exponentially every year. This seems to be the case with our respondents as well, 73 out of which already own a smartphone and 16 intending to buy one in the near future, leaving only 26 people without one or the intention to have one. In addition, it appears that the ‘smartphone fever’ has definitely sunk in as users make the most out of it and use most features. With the exception of four people, 69 of the smartphone owners access the Internet on their mobile device one way or another: email (67), online searches (53), instant messaging (48), weather (47), social networking or blogging (45), news (41), maps (40), Youtube (32), bank accounts (16). It is true that marketing in the form of text messages can be carried out on regular phones but the reality is that on a smartphone, it can flourish and thrive. If the results above indicate anything, is the fact that there is potential for people to be tempted and for mobile marketing to grow if the service is marketed in the right way, as Michael and Safter, Becker and Arnold (see section 3) also said. Theory has touched upon the new possibilities that the mobile phone can provide as a marketing channel. It is up to companies and organizations to come up with competent campaigns to catch consumers’ attention and spur their interest. 5.1.1 Awareness of Mobile MarketingFigure 2. Awareness of Mobile Marketing Now that we have established that mobile marketing is not going anywhere, we will focus our attention on consumers’ perception of it. In order to find that out, we have to look at their attitudes. First of all, attitudes can be inferred from what consumers do and what they do does not necessarily mean only direct experience with the service. Apart from this, it also refers to their awareness of mobile marketing, search of information and intentions, at least according to Arnould et al.’s consumer’s decision-making process (see section 4.3). Therefore, their attitudes can be inferred from their pre-consumption, consumption and post-consumption activities, depending on the case. To begin with, it is important to address the high level of awareness with regard to mobile marketing that the respondents have. With the exception of three people, everyone else has heard of at least one type of mobile marketing. Thus, if the consumers have retained this information in their brain, it means that whatever exposure they had to it (ads, websites, articles), they understood the message or what it was about (see section 4.3). Considering the fact that many people may pass by a billboard without even noticing it or may not remember a TV ad the next day after its screening, this can be interpreted as a positive thing. It is easier to promote a service that people are more or less aware of. For instance, not everyone set up a Facebook profile as soon as they heard about it. On the contrary, it took time to grow on people. As it can be seen in figure 2., the types of mobile marketing they are most aware of are SMS, apps and MMS which is explicable given the fact that text messaging is the oldest “trick in the book” mobile marketing-wise and has been around for a long period of time. For example, Tsang, Ho and Liang’s study on SMS-advertising appeared in 2004 (see section 3). Also, the introduction of iTunes along with the iPhone caused a massive frenzy among consumers and the word app quickly came to be on everyone’s lips which led to immense popularity of the word and concept. Obviously, not every app has a marketing aspect embedded but given how popular they are nowadays, it is safe to assume that consumers, smartphone users or not, are relatively informed about it. Thus, it is understandable how most of the respondents identified the app as a type of mobile marketing. It is also important to mention that the type of mobile each respondent has is not “responsible” for their level of awareness regarding mobile marketing. Actually, more than half of the respondents who own a regular mobile phone, 32 out of 42 to be more exact, are aware of other types of mobile marketing than text messaging which in their case would be the only one they could experience if they wanted to. So the mobile device in itself is not a hindrance in this sense. Speaking of other mobile marketing tools, in each case fewer than half of the respondents admitted to having heard of them: display ads (47), LBM (31), QR codes (29), paid search ads (24) and NFC (14). Somewhat surprising is the low awareness level with regard to display and paid search ads given the fact that this type of advertising has first been seen in the computer world and it has been around for some time. Krum has indeed acknowledged a low 1% to 3% click-through for mobile banners and an even lower percentage for traditional online banners (see section 4.2.2) but the assumption could have easily been refusal to use them or lack of trust not lack of attention. If these statistics are indicative of anything then I believe they confirm Godin’s theory (see section 4.1.1) that there is an attention crisis going on. People have a limited amount of time and a far greater array of possibilities to choose from to make consumer-related decisions. Figuring out how to use it wisely and what to pay attention to depends on each and everyone one but the bottom line remains that catching consumers’ attention is a challenge for every marketer. Thus, it can be concluded that the respondents’ awareness with regard to mobile marketing in general is high (98%) which means that more or less people know what it is about which in turn means that they get to have a viewpoint about it. Since this is what this research is after, this information is more than welcome. However, when breaking the service down to different types, we have seen that some of them are more familiar to the respondents than others. Hence, there is a need for certain types of mobile marketing to be promoted more, especially LBM, QR codes and NFC, since they can provide a different, more interactive experience than the other ones (see sections 4.2.4 and 4.2.5). 5.1.2 Interest in Mobile MarketingFigure 3. Interest in Mobile Marketing Furthermore, the correlation between the extent of awareness and intention to know more about mobile marketing is significantly low. For starters, almost half of the respondents (53) had never been interested to find out more about any of the different types of mobile marketing. Interest is, as we have seen, the second stage in the consumers’ decision-making process (see section 4.3). This means that 50 of the respondents (the other three were not even aware what mobile marketing was so could not have expressed an interest) were not captivated enough by mobile marketing to pursue it any further (ask friends, read articles, search information online). Of those who did however (61), it is a fact that some displayed a higher sense of curiosity than others, in the sense that 26 of them have searched information about only one type of mobile marketing while the remaining 36 about multiple types (from two to even eight). Although not really encouraging, the results for those who did express an interest are as follows: apps (32), SMS (27), QR codes (21), MMS (18), display ads (15), LBM (14), NFC (9), paid search (8). An interesting fact is that QR codes and NFC convinced most of their audience (although scarce) to take a further interest, losing only 8 and 5 respondents respectively from the awareness stage, while all the other types have lost significant numbers. Thus, one may never know with more awareness about them, what kind of interest and response these two might cause. While we do not know when exactly this search of information took place for any of the respondents, it is safe to assume that it happened in the past. Thus the above results indicate a past level of interest in mobile marketing. Respondents were asked a further question in order to assess their level of interest for the future. Specifically they were asked to name what (other) type(s) of mobile marketing they would be interested to search more information about. While there is indeed a change in the statistics, it still cannot be deemed as encouraging. If before 53 of the respondents had never displayed any type of interest towards mobile marketing, this time 51 of them stated their disinterest in finding more about it. What is noteworthy however has to do with the changes that have taken place in the meantime. Some respondents have remained constant in the sense that they were not and are still not interested (32) or they were and are still interested (42) to find out more about mobile marketing. But there are also people who have not been curious before but are now (20) and vice versa (19). The general results however have not improved in any significant way: display ads, paid search ads, NFC and LBM are the only ones who have in the meantime experienced a slight increase in the level of interest; for others it has decreased (SMS, MMS, apps) or remained just the same (QR codes). Overall, the level of interest of the respondents in mobile marketing has increased from the past to the present by only 1%. Therefore, it can be said that while the awareness with regard to mobile marketing is high (98%), the level of interest in the service is significantly lower (54%). This means that the new type of marketing that so many have hailed as the “next best thing” (see section 3), has failed to garner a significant amount of interest from the people that actually matter and on which its success depends, the consumer. By comparison, Google+ which is a different spin put to social media sites (just as mobile marketing is a different spin put to marketing), has drawn such interest that in 16 days after its launch, it reached 10 million users (Imran, 2011). Going back to mobile marketing, the results show that 44% of the respondents, 50 in numbers, are not interested in the experience that mobile marketing could provide which means that it failed to appeal to them. Personally, I believe that more mobile campaigns could be of real help since it would somehow “force” the consumer into finding out more if he or she wants to be a part of the experience. If the campaigns were to go viral, it would be even better since this way they could spur more interest. People are more willing to look into something recommended by friends or family or something that is “the talk of the town.” The more people interested in the service, the higher the chances of giving mobile marketing a try. 5.1.3 Experience with Mobile MarketingEvidently, one could try to justify the modest level of interest of the respondents in mobile marketing by drawing attention to the possibility that they may have opted to directly experience it without getting informed first. Experience or trial as Arnould et al. name it (see section 4.3) is the third stage in the consumer’s decision-making process. In any case, this could have been a valid argument had the statistics regarding the respondents’ experience with mobile marketing been actually higher than the ones we have just presented above. The truth however is that the correlation between the level of interest and the level of experience with the service is even lower than the previous Figure 4. Experience with Mobile Marketing awareness – interest relation, with one exception. In the case of SMS marketing, it does seem that many of the respondents skipped the “information search” stage and delved into the experience: 27 respondents have tried to find out more about SMS marketing whereas 55 of them interacted with a company or organization via SMS. It can be assumed that people’s familiarity with SMS in general may have made them feel at ease with the service and in no need for further inquiry so they simply decided for the experience. In all the other cases of mobile marketing however, the respondents’ experience is extremely low. While the statistics for apps (27) and QR codes (12) can under no circumstances be perceived as positive, those for display ads (8), paid search ads (7), MMS (6), NFC (4) and LBM (3) are downright discouraging. Looking at these numbers, it sure seems difficult to perceive mobile marketing as the “marketing of the future,” as Dushinski named it (see section 4.3), considering the fact that if consumers do not embrace it then there is no future for mobile marketing. Looking at the bigger picture however, one must not forget that almost half of the respondents did experience SMS marketing, most probably because they were familiar with it. At the same time, we have already established that there is a modest level of awareness with regard to paid search ads, QR codes, NFC and LBM so the level of interest could not, from the start, be any higher. Thus, I return once again to the idea of more promotion. Moreover, I agree with the claim that consumers should be educated on the new possibilities that technological advancements supply (see section 4.2.4). Knowledge may help the consumer understand the service better, its benefits, cons and usage and consequently give it a try but in no way does it guarantee acceptance or success. It can go either way since it depends on the consumer’s perception of it. Nonetheless, through promotion, consumers can be educated in this regard. Overall, 47 of the respondents admitted to not having experienced mobile marketing while 67 have, although 7 of them have stated that their experience consisted in simply receiving spam messages, meaning that only 60 of them have willingly experienced it. According to the results, fear of spamming seems to be a legitimate concern for consumers (see section 4.1.2) as 31 of the respondents have apparently received such messages. Going back to the statistics, if we take into account that 55 of the 60 respondents mentioned have experienced SMS marketing (some only the SMS type, others two or more) then its prevalence among the others is all the more visible. Moreover, as in the case of past and future interest in mobile marketing that we inquired about, the respondents were asked the same thing about their experience. As it turns out, the future does not seem any brighter. The results indicate an increase in the “none” segment. In other words, if 47 of the respondents did not experience mobile marketing before, 59 now admit that they would not like to experience mobile marketing or other types of mobile marketing. In fact, the willingness to give them a try is considerably low. The numbers do not show an all of a sudden excitement or change of heart that would offer mobile marketing, in this instance, a glimmer of hope: LBM (24), apps (19), NFC (16), QR codes (13), paid search ads (10), MMS (7), SMS (6), display ads (6). As mentioned above, there is a disparity in the respondents’ answers between the level of interest and that of experience with mobile marketing. Namely, there is a higher level in the former than the latter (with the exception of SMS). What this means is that interest and experience are not necessarily complementary. Some people may only want to keep informed about the things around them but not automatically yield in to them and vice versa (as we have seen with SMS marketing). But it is still important to know how curious or informed consumers are with regard to a product or service. The interest statistics have shown a first reaction of the respondents with regard to mobile marketing: 50 of the respondents were not interested to know more about it. But it should not be automatically assumed that none of them will give it a try or that those who displayed an interest will all experience it. Just like theory says (see section 4.3), from here on, it can go either way: the consumer can stop or take the next step. Assessing experience is simply a way of rounding up the respondents’ attitudes from their activities. And speaking of experience, as a conclusion to this section, it can be said that approximately half of the respondents have experienced mobile marketing. Of them however, a large percentage have experienced SMS marketing in particular and an extremely low number have experienced other types, which, ironically, are at the forefront of journalists’ and theorists’ attention because of the possibilities they can provide; possibilities that have apparently failed to resonate with the respondents.
After assessing the respondents’ level of awareness, interest and experience, the results have revealed the following perspectives (see section 4.3):
Thus, in terms of rejection and adoption (see section 4.3) the results are as follows: of the 67 respondents who have experienced mobile marketing (spam included), 42 have adopted it and 25 have rejected it; of the 47 respondents who have never experienced mobile marketing, 35 are not interested to while 12 of them would be. Overall we have 42 adopters, 60 rejecters and 12 neutralists. In terms of positive-negative-neutral attitudes (see section 4.3.) we already know that 3 of the respondents are not familiar with mobile marketing which means that they cannot have a proper opinion. And although they have rejected the service, it is natural to reject something you know nothing about. So, it is already established that 3 of the respondents, or 2%, have a neutral attitude. That leaves us with 57 rejecters who have a negative attitude towards mobile marketing, to which we add the 18 people who respond to mobile marketing for personal reasons but do not enjoy it. Therefore, 75 of the respondents, or 66%, have a negative attitude. Finally, to the 24 respondents who enjoy mobile marketing, we add the 12 persons who would like to experience it. While the latter are neutral in terms of adoption/rejection because they have not decided yet which is going to be, all of them are aware of mobile marketing and most of them have even searched for information. If with the little or considerable amount of information they know they still want to give it a try, it could be assumed that at the stage they are right now, they have a positive attitude towards mobile marketing. In total, that means 36 of the respondents or 32% have a positive attitude. To sum up, the overall results do not look particularly encouraging for mobile marketing. After assessing their activities (awareness, interest and experience), it was revealed that the respondents’ adoption of the service is low and that more than half of them display a negative attitude towards it. Directory: projekter -> files files -> IT’d be weird without mcdonald’S files -> Of Maj 2014 aau introduction & Theory files -> Representations of Gender in Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple files -> Semester: 10th Semester, Master Thesis Title files -> Research in contemporary social movements: a case study of Guatemala 2015 files -> Anne Hviid-Pilgaard Master Thesis 31/05 2012 Table of Contents files -> Jakob Nors-Ganer Aalborg University 28-05-2015 files -> Security and trust in IoT/M2m cloud based platform files -> The impact of french and british colonial rule on the he system in cameroon from the perspective of students files -> Rumble in the jungle the ‘Blessing’ and ‘Curse’ of Mineral Wealth in the Congo Download 235.84 Kb. Share with your friends:
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